


Whiteout

by loose_canon



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: A little bit of fluff, M/M, Sharing Clothes, Tenderness, a little bit of smut, a twist on the "oh no there's only one bed!" trope, andrew has glasses and reads fantasy, canon-divergent, meeting the love of your life on amtrak au, neil josten needs a coat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-03-19
Packaged: 2019-11-24 21:15:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18169964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loose_canon/pseuds/loose_canon
Summary: The man next to Andrew leans forward and groans into his hands. Andrew doesn’t ask him if he’s all right, but he does flick the man an eyebrow in question.“I’m fine,” the man says.“Definitely.” Andrews gives his outfit a slow once-over.“I’ll manage. I’ve done it before.” Defiance changes his pretty face, makes him fierce. Andrew grunts skeptically and opens his book before he can say something stupid.But that doesn’t stop his seatmate. “I don’t like not being able to move, being stuck in a crowd, you know?” The glacier-lake eyes slowly close, and the man breathes out, soft and slow. Then he says, “I’m Neil.”“I thought you were fine.” Andrew gets a shadow of a smile for that one, and it’s a cold wave of water in his gut, a quick shock and a trace of pleasure.





	Whiteout

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fornavn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fornavn/gifts).



Andrew hates flying, hates slamming through invisible air sockets in a tiny aluminum cylinder he could peel apart with his fingernails. So instead he’s on the train. He’s already watched the swampy South Carolina landscape transform into North Carolina foothills tracing blue mountains that rise and fall in the distance like whale backs in water. Up through D.C., Baltimore, Philly. The buildings grew taller and older, muddling dark industrial steel and faded vermillion brick. Then finally the train shot across the border to Canada and dumped him in Toronto. Now Andrew is returning by the same route, the landscape already sealed in his memory, a tape playing backward.

The train passes over the wide murk of the Hudson River then cleaves thick clumps of high-rises. At Penn Station, a final wave of passengers trickles through the automatic doors. They unspool themselves from beefy coats and scarves, clutch nylon straps and crumpled paper tickets and whatever awaits them at the end of the rust-ribbon tracks.

Andrew went to Toronto to find something worth living for. He’s still not sure if he’s succeeded.

“Excuse me.” A man stands in the aisle on Andrew’s left and darts his eyes to the window seat on Andrew’s other side. Andrew pulls his legs in about an inch and glances up. The fluorescents shine on a slender face, high cheekbones sloping up toward a tangle of auburn hair. Eyes like the surface of a glacier lake. Andrew is momentarily disarmed by the man’s beauty. A smattering of faded scars flash by on the man’s left arm as he hikes over Andrew’s legs. They’re nothing like Andrew’s scars, methodical and self-inflicted. These were sustained unwillingly, scratches of champagne pink on olive skin. His clothes look like hand-me-downs from a relative twice his size. Why someone with a face like that would wear a thin t-shirt, pilled and faded with use, and loose grey jeans rubbed to white at the knees, Andrew does not know or care. The man sits and trails his eyes around the car, catalogues the passengers and the exits with cautious precision. Andrew can feel the man’s mind working from here. His inspection done, the man briefly turns his gaze to Andrew, unsure but defensive, before settling on the opposite armrest and gazing out the window.

Shabby clothes, few belongings, demeanor a mixture of paranoid and proud. A familiar combination for Andrew. But the man’s eyes flash with a quiet determination Andrew abandoned long ago. Whatever he’s running from, this man wants to make it. Interesting.

The train shoves off the platform with a metallic squeal Andrew feels in his teeth. Snow floats in fat, downy flakes and sheaths the passing city. Though cold dulls the stench of people clustered in the car around him, Andrew still catches hints of laundry detergent and onions and fruity gum. He retrieves a thick fantasy novel and glasses case from his backpack. Readers on and book open, Andrew tries to block out the world around him, but his seatmate is bright in his periphery. Andrew wills his attention to the page.

Wind smacks against the windows and snow cuts sideways as the train picks up speed. A toddler at the front of the car gives a hearty shriek. Andrew glances at his seatmate’s attire and huffs. A t-shirt isn’t going to cut it in this weather, and the man’s duffel is too deflated to hide anything substantial, much less a winter coat. The man jerks to his feet and slings his bag over his shoulder.

“Sorry,” he mutters as he steps over Andrew. Andrew doesn’t move, only pulls his novel to his chest so the man’s perfectly curved ass can pass by and disappear down the aisle.

The man returns a few minutes later, duffel bag in tow, a light grey hoodie that can’t be much thicker than his t-shirt wrapping his shoulders. He took his entire bag with him to put a jacket on in the bathroom? Here’s a better question: Why does Andrew care? Andrew doesn’t care. Nothing about this situation is interesting, and Andrew isn’t interested.

A din of tiny chirps and muffled buzzes sounds. Andrew’s thigh vibrates. He wiggles his flip phone from his front pocket and snaps it open.

BLIZZARD WARNING ISSUED FOR THE FOLLOWING AREAS: SOUTHERN NEW YORK, NORTHERN NEW JERSEY, CENTRAL NEW JERSEY, EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA, SOUTHERN NEW JERSEY. SUDDEN ICE AND SNOW. TRAVEL CONDITIONS DANGEROUS. WARNING EFFECTIVE 7PM-7AM EST.

Snow pelts down in earnest now, not in soft drifts, but heavy, frozen falls. Hail clatters on the train’s roof and occasional dumps of white whoosh past the windows. The man next to Andrew does not ping or vibrate. Andrew considers the man blocking his view again. As if sensing the eyes on him, the man turns and meets Andrew’s gaze. Fear and defiance war on the man’s face, then a mask falls over his features, his eyes hard and shallow. For half a second, Andrew’s thumb itches to trace the man’s cheekbone, but the moment passes.

It only takes an hour for the storm to worsen and panic to clutch the passengers’ hearts. Frantic phone calls swirl through the car as night steals the light from the world outside the windows, snow reflected in the train’s light then disappeared into dark purple sky. A tinny voice rings from the loudspeakers and repeats the earlier texted warning, promises that the train will continue its journey until it’s too dangerous to go on.

The man next to Andrew leans forward and groans into his hands. Andrew doesn’t ask him if he’s all right, but he does flick the man an eyebrow in question.

“I’m fine,” the man says.

“Definitely.” Andrews gives his outfit a slow once-over.

“I’ll manage. I’ve done it before.” Defiance changes his pretty face, makes him fierce. Andrew grunts skeptically and opens his book before he can say something stupid.

But that doesn’t stop his seatmate. “I don’t like not being able to move, being stuck in a crowd, you know?” The glacier-lake eyes slowly close, and the man breathes out, soft and slow. Then he says, “I’m Neil.”

“I thought you were fine.” Andrew gets a shadow of a smile for that one, and it’s a cold wave of water in his gut, a quick shock and a trace of pleasure.

The speakers snap on. “Ladies and gentlemen, the conductor is reporting that conditions have worsened and we cannot safely continue at this time. Instead, we will wait until tomorrow morning. At 6 a.m., one hour before the blizzard warning ends, we will reassess, and hopefully conditions will have improved enough to resume our journey by 7. Although we are not close to a town, a small hotel just off the track has offered to take in any who would prefer to ride the storm out there. If you would prefer to stay on the train, we will continue to heat the cabins. If you prefer to try the hotel, please gather at your car door and wait for an employee to lead you to the building. Do not wander away. Whiteout conditions will quickly disorient you. Those who choose the hotel may have to share rooms, and are responsible for their own safety, as well as their own return to the train before 6 a.m. tomorrow morning.”

“Will you go?” Neil’s voice is quiet.

The options aren’t great. Andrew had planned on staying awake for the entire journey, so remaining where he is won’t change much. On the other hand, he could follow Neil to the hotel and watch him continue to unravel, maybe smoke a cigarette or two.

Andrew shrugs. “Are you going out in a blizzard in that?” He aims his chin toward the man’s pathetic hoodie.

“I’ll be fine,” Neil says.

“Yup,” Andrew says and pops the final “p.” He stands and steps into the aisle, dons a thick, grey pea coat and black beanie from his bag. Neil watches him put on the coat like a hungry scavenger. Andrew can feel it now; something dangerous lurks behind the nothingness in his chest. He pushes it down, down, down.

Andrew reaches into his bag and procures his neon orange Exy puffer coat, “Palmetto Foxes” stamped across the right breast. He pushes it into the man’s chest. “Now you can’t disappear,” he says. Ice-light eyes flash with understanding as they step off the train and into the wind.

Outside, Neil doesn’t take his eyes off Andrew as he slides into the coat, his red mouth twisted into something between a question and a confession. He opens his mouth to speak, probably to thank Andrew or share some sob story, but Andrew stops him, places an index finger in front of Neil’s mouth, just a hair’s width away from his open lips. “Don’t.”

Neil’s breath is a warm cloud around Andrew’s hand, then he closes his mouth, silent. Are his eyes slipping down to Andrew’s mouth or is Andrew only seeing that because that’s what he wants—what he’d like, rather? He doesn’t want anything.

The hotel isn’t far from the train tracks. Flashlights distort the traveler’s shadows as they swing across the shining ground through the fluttering screen of white. No one says anything. Employees in high-visibility vests herd the clump of passengers across the snow like ants in a sugar bowl. Sharp wind bone-rattles invisible tree branches. Shoes crunch through the snow, barely audible over the tumult of wind barraging Andrew’s ears, until it all transforms into a wall of white noise and then fades into nothing at all.

He’s tired. His head hurts. But there’s something unreal about the man he follows, unreal like the opaque, milky clouds that fold around the little group. Like Neil might slip into the ether and disappear if Andrew doesn’t keep an eye on him. Irritation bubbles through Andrew’s apathy. He should at least get his coat back.

The hotel is a squat, colonial building, more bed and breakfast than hotel. Decorations Andrew imagines are supposed to be quaint trim the walls—old photographs and screen-printed drawings of birds—above stiff chairs and couches in hotel green. A woman in a hi-vis vest counts the travelers and hands out keys while the hotel manager looks magnanimously on.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have enough rooms for each passenger to have their own, so please gather together in your traveling groups or with another person.”

Andrew approaches the woman in the vest and holds his hand out for a keycard.

She looks over Andrew’s shoulder and must see Neil. “There you go, hon.” She flashes Andrew a smile and places the card in its small white envelope onto Andrew’s palm.

Andrew doesn’t stick around to thank her. He pushes the envelope to Neil’s chest, another glance of warmth beneath the pads of his fingers, then pulls Neil by the coat sleeve toward the hall. Andrew’s eyes scan the little placards with room numbers and directional arrows as they walk.

“So. Neil. What takes you south?”

“A cousin.” Neil’s voice is stiff.

“Does this cousin have a name?”

Neil narrows his eyes and crosses his arms. “Everyone has a name,” he grumbles.

“And yours is Neil, right?” Andrew’s face remains deadpan, but his words have a mocking edge.

“Yes,” Neil bites out, heat flushing his cheeks. “What’s your deal?”

“Why don’t you tell me, runaway?”

A pause. “Takes one to know one.”

Very interesting. Wrong, but interesting.

They arrive at Room 103, but neither Neil nor Andrew move to open the door.

Neil tucks a stray hair behind his ear and sighs. “What gave me away?”

Andrew gives his grubby outfit a pointed look and hopes the derision in his eyes masks his desire. Everything about Neil is attractive. His neck, the calluses on his hands, his little frown when he’s angry. “You look like a hobo and you twitch like a rabbit.”

“I’m supposed to be done running,” Neil mutters.

“Then be done. Stop.”

Surprise flashes over Neil’s face before he settles back into that defensive anger Andrew is starting to like. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. It’s not that easy.”

“Yes, I do.” Andrew pauses for a moment. “I can’t help you if I don’t know what you’re running from.”

“I’m not running from anyone—anymore. This is just all I’ve ever done, all I’ve ever been,” Neil meets Andrew’s eyes and there’s something painfully familiar in them, the emptiness that comes with absolute truth, the last flicker of hope that this sorry existence could be something more than fighting to stay afloat. “If I stop running, I have nothing. I am nothing.”

Andrew knows what it is to be nothing, to make yourself so small you no longer exist in your own eyes or in anyone else’s. The thing in his chest raises its head: anger, hot and twisting. Not for himself, but for Neil and whoever left him like this. “It doesn’t matter whether you run or you stop, Neil. If you’re nothing, you’re nothing.”

Neil doesn’t reply to that, just holds the key card out toward Andrew. “I can’t sleep with strangers in the room. I’ll wait out here.”

Andrew pinches the card between his thumb and forefinger but doesn’t take it from Neil. “Martyr.” Neil doesn’t defend himself. “Wake me up in a few hours and we’ll switch. I’ll need a cigarette anyway.” Neil nods and Andrew slides the card from between Neil’s fingers. “I’d tell you to leave your stuff inside, but I can’t imagine you taking your iron grip off that grubby little bag.” Andrew continues. “Knock on the door in a few hours and we’ll trade places. If you don’t, I won’t be happy.” Andrew lets all the emotion drain out of the end of the sentence.

Neil nods again, his mouth turned down just a fraction at the corners.

Ignore him, Andrew tells himself. He’s stupid and he’s nothing. But Andrew can’t help it, violence caught in his throat. “Don’t be sad, little rabbit. You have plenty of time to think about where to disappear to next.” Andrew slides the card into the reader, which chirps as a little light flashes green. Andrew opens the door a crack when he hears a soft “wait.”

He turns back and sees that Neil has moved as if to grab Andrew’s elbow but paused halfway through. Andrew eyes the outstretched hand with disdain, then meets Neil’s eyes. A question wars there with something else, something desperate.

“When did you stop running?” Neil’s voice is barely audible.

So stupid. “I never run.” Andrew walks into the dark room and slams the door behind him.

Andrew sheds his coat, scarf, and hat, then rips his shirt over his head. Fucking Neil. Andrew knows better. He runs his hand over the band on his forearm hiding his knives and the proof of his past. He hadn’t run back then because he’d wanted to stay, and then he paid for it. He wouldn’t want anything again. He doesn’t. And he should ditch this kid at the first opportunity, let him have an identity crisis on his own. Once in bed, Andrew pulls his favorite knife from its sheath and grips it hard beneath his pillow. Andrew’s a light sleeper, doubly so when someone he doesn’t know is around, but he does manage to doze off for a bit, dreams sheer as gossamer floating over his eyes.

Neil, auburn hair mussed and mouth barely ajar. Andrew swipes his thumb across Neil’s bottom lip, then dips it into Neil’s mouth. Neil closes his lips around Andrew, warm tongue sliding against him behind a row of gentle teeth. Andrew is about to relieve Neil of his shirt when a triple tap throws him out of the dream and back into the dark hotel room. Andrew readjusts his sweatpants, grabs a pack of cigarettes, and opens the door.

Neil is still, both hands gripping the strap of his duffel bag, his face tired and expression guarded. Andrew resists the urge to brush over the fragile skin under Neil’s eyes with his thumbs, featherlight. For half a heartbeat, Neil eyes Andrew’s armbands and—Andrew is pretty sure—traces up to Andrew biceps and shoulders. But the moment is too quick to tell.

Neil holds Andrew’s puffy coat out. “Thanks.” Andrew looks at the coat and back to Neil, then pushes past him, ignoring the offer.

“The key card’s on the nightstand.” Andrew leans against the wall outside the door and fishes a cigarette from the carton. Neil stays frozen in the doorway and watches him light up. Andrew can feel his gaze but doesn’t look over, just breathes in the nicotine, lets it fill his lungs in a slow billow, then breathes it back out. That’s better.

“Andrew,” comes the voice over his shoulder.

“Neil.” He raises the cigarette for another drag and stares straight ahead.

The man shifts his weight and Andrew can hear his clothes rustling. “You play exy?”

That makes Andrew turn, and when he sees the disgustingly hopeful look on Neil’s face, he blows smoke right into it. “What’s it to you?”

Neil leans against the doorframe, his eyes drift out of focus, and he mutters, “A lot, actually.”

“Go get some sleep. We can deal with your obsessions in the morning.” Neil opens his mouth to reply and Andrew cuts over him, “Don’t make me change my mind.” He flicks his fingers at Neil in dismissal and crouches next to the wall to continue smoking. After a moment, the door thuds shut and he’s alone.

Andrew smokes in deep, acrid breaths until the the cigarette whittles to the end, heat tickling his fingertips. This building can’t be up to fire codes; the next smoke alarm is two hallways over. The train and the bed and breakfast are a different universe, some kind of pocket where time slows down and lays itself out for consideration. Andrew chafes at the feeling of examination. He’s counting the days without a goal, just noticing their passing as they go by, one after the other, no longer gauzy and hysterical with drugs, just perfunctory, material things. Looking at Neil, though, makes the light arc in slow motion. Andrew’s anger turns inward. He can’t let himself do this again. His head hits the wall behind him and he wills his mind to match the blank opacity of the snow outside—nothing seen, nothing heard.

Neil isn’t inside the room for a full hour and a half before he creaks the door back open. Andrew slides him a look.

“Can’t sleep. It’s not gonna happen tonight.” Neil’s auburn hair is disheveled and a pillow crease is pressed into his temple but his eyes are heavy with exhaustion.

Andrew nods, lights a new cigarette, and holds it toward Neil who takes it and sits down beside him. His eyes scan the hall for an alarm before he takes one deep drag and lets the stick burn down in his cupped hands.

“So, which position do you play?” Neil is as annoying as ever.

Andrew flicks Neil a look and gets a shrug in response. “Hey, it’s technically morning.” Neil’s voice is scratchy from attempted sleep.

“What will you give me if I tell you?”

“What do you want?”

“Nothing,” Andrew says with finality, though the thrum in his gut tells him he’s lying.

“What will you take?”

“Who were you running from—before?”

Neil sighs and runs his hand through auburn curls. “That’s a steep price for something I could find on the internet.”

Andrew shrugs.

“Could we at least go inside?” Neil glances back at the door. Andrew almost snarks that they are inside, but he can see the tension in Neil’s frame.

“Fine.”

In the room, Neil takes the edge of the bed, his hands under his thighs, shoulders only a hair more relaxed. Andrew sits in the scratchy wingback chair opposite him. The bedside lamp hollows Neil’s face as he talks.

“It was my father, and—his people.”

Andrew stares back at Neil, watches Neil’s jaw and fists clench and unclench. Neil looks down at his lap, his gaze brushing over his forearms and the few scars littered there then reflexively pulls at his collar. Andrew wonders what he would find below the hem at the dip of Neil’s throat.

“He was a gangster, and my mom and I escaped when I was fairly young. We were on the run for a long time, every few months a new city, a new identity. His people caught up to us, though. She didn’t survive the encounter.” His eyes fade into the middle distance, bottom lip caught by his teeth.

“And your father?” Andrew prompts.

“Dead. I wish I could shake the hand of whoever did it.” Neil glances up, nervous and defiant about what he’s let slip, but Andrew has more than enough experience hating the people responsible for his existence.

They sit in silence, nothing but the low thrum of the heater working. Neil won’t look away from Andrew, and Andrew finds himself content to stare back. In this light, Neil’s eyes are quiet and clear.

“Goalie.”

Neil digests that, then crosses his arms. “That’s it?”

“How many positions do you expect a man to play?”

“I mean, that’s all you’re going to tell me?”

“Why should I tell you anything else?”

“Because I want to know. I don’t know. I just told you a lot.”

“That was your choice.”

Neil is quiet, then looks at Andrew’s armbands, the black fabric that covers his forearms from wrist to elbow. “What are those for?”

“That’ll cost you dearly,” Andrew warns, his voice low and quiet.

“Like what?”

Andrew can’t help give Neil a once-over now. “Show me your scars.” Neil is rigid, eyes panicked and animal. “Calm down; it’s a good guess. Your father was a gangster and you spent years on the run. A few scrapes can’t be all there is to it.”

Neil shakes his head. “I don’t want you to see—” His eyes screw tight. Andrew watches Neil battle himself, refuses to weigh in. “Just—here. You can feel, just a little. If you want.” He holds out his hand and waits for Andrew to relinquish his own arm. Andrew stares for a few moments, then ever so slowly places his wrist in Neil’s palm. He knows Neil can feel how tense he is, the way his pulse skips beneath thin skin. Neil doesn’t grip Andrew’s wrist, just gently guides it to the bottom of his shirt, moving just as slowly as Andrew did. Neil looks up at Andrew, waits for a physical nod, then dips Andrew’s hand beneath the hem of fabric and lightly places it on his own abdomen. Andrew is still. Beneath his fingers is a ruin of skin, warm and ridged, a cluster of scar tissue. He doesn’t see Neil’s stomach, but he doesn’t have to.

“It’s okay,” Neil whispers, though Andrew isn’t sure if Neil’s telling him it’s okay to touch or that Neil is okay despite the battlefield beneath Andrew’s palm. After a few long moments, Andrew retracts his hand. He doesn’t look away from Neil’s eyes, still and deep, as he slowly peels off his armbands. Once both are gone, he rotates his forearms and reveals the slashed skin there. The scars line his entire forearm, thick and thorough from wrist to elbow. Neil’s face shifts to dark recognition. He scans Andrew’s outstretched arms, then lifts a hand.

“Can I?” He waits for Andrew’s reply, eyes gentle, nothing insistent, just watching.

Andrew shakes his head, then pulls his armbands back on again.

“You didn’t have to—” Neil tries. Andrew can’t stand it. Can’t take the pity or apology from this man. Doesn’t he know Andrew only does what he wants to?

Andrew covers Neil’s mouth with his palm before he can continue. “Don’t. I don’t want to hear it.” Andrew is leaning into Neil’s space now, inches away from his body warmth. Neil seems to shut up for good and Andrew pulls his hand back, the surface of his skin tingling in the shape of Neil’s lips.

They are silent for a while after that. Everything is dark outside the windows as the wind peals and sighs.

Neil looks at Andrew like the answer to a puzzle is hidden somewhere in Andrew’s expression. Andrew doesn’t look back, not wanting to get caught cataloguing the man’s beautiful face.

“Why did you offer to help me?”

“I didn’t.” Andrew hadn’t offered to help per se, but he had implied that he would, that he wanted to even.

“Well, you said that you couldn’t help me unless you knew what I was running from. So you can. Why would you even be thinking about it?”

Andrew redistributes his weight in the chair, brings one knee to his chest and loops his arms around it. “I can’t stand the sight of you. Having someone like you this close to me is intolerable.”

“Someone like me?”

“Someone so stupid they won’t give up.” Andrew watches this information process on Neil’s face and knows he’s hit home.

“You’re not very good at avoiding people you can’t stand, are you?” Neil’s voice is a bit surly.

Andrew slides Neil a flat look. “And you’re not very good at keeping your own secrets.”

“No point, anymore,” Neil mumbles.

“Then why run?”

“I already told you.”

Andrew’s heart stutters at the resignation in Neil’s voice and he inwardly curses himself for reacting so strongly to this man. He leans forward out of his chair and catches Neil’s chin between his thumb and forefinger. Neil’s skin is soft and his mouth is so close. Flashes of Andrew’s dream come rushing back to him and he releases Neil just as quickly. Andrew leans back in his chair and, before Neil can ask any questions, says, “I started playing exy in juvie. It was just something to pass the time.”

Neil pulls his legs up onto the bed and crosses them, leans his elbows on his knees and places his chin on his knuckles. “And then you realized you wanted to keep playing?”

“I don’t want anything.”

“So you’ve said, Andrew.”

“Does that irritate you?”

“You keep surprising me. I’m interested, not irritated.”

Something churns in Andrew’s gut and Neil gives him the shadow of a smile. Andrew stretches it out in his mind and imagines the kind of smile Neil would give if he were allowed to just be for a moment, if he could forget to watch his back. And Andrew wants. “Why did you come with me?” Andrew is still when he asks, his breath barely moving in his lungs.

“To the hotel?”

“At all.”

Neil’s eyes reflect the low lamplight as he looks around the room, a warm silhouette against the dark of the far wall. He glances up to Andrew for half a second then to his hands. “I don’t know.” The clock on the bedside table flicks to 2:00 a.m. “I just trust you, I guess.”

“You really shouldn’t,” Andrew says.

“Oh?” Neil arches an eyebrow and Andrew leans forward, allows the manic smile he used to wear everywhere make an appearance.

“You have no idea what I’m capable of.”

Neil eyes Andrew’s arms. “I think I have a good guess.”

Andrew smiles even wider, his frustration manifesting. He slides a knife out from under his armband and flips it through his fingers to calm himself.

“You knew who I was when you saw the jacket.”

Neil doesn’t even have the good grace to look guilty. “I did. Andrew Minyard. Goalie for Palmetto State Foxes, #10. Incredible stats, when he’s trying. Thought by some to be crazy, thought by others to be protective of his own.”

Hearing this man recite Andrew’s information to him should be disconcerting, but it’s not. What unsettles Andrew is the way Neil seems to pierce so quickly to the truth of who he is, the truth of his violence, of his supposed psychosis. “So why ask me what position I play if you already know everything about me?”

“Maybe I just wanted you to tell me.”

“Maybe you should be afraid then. Don’t you know I’m prone to violence?” Andrew continues to leer at Neil.

“Maybe I’ve seen unprovoked violence. And I know you aren’t it.” Neil speaks quietly and watches Andrew’s face, no hint of fear, just open tenderness.

Andrew leans forward and touches his right hand to Neil’s jaw. “Tell me no.” His heart pounds in his chest and he can see his desire reflected in those bright blue eyes, not the usual lust, but something deeper, desire for understanding.

“I won’t,” Neil replies and closes his eyes.

Andrew can barely move forward, but he inches into Neil’s space, their mouths close enough to catch each other’s breath. Neil’s eyes flick open, pupils wide in the soft light—expectant, wanting, commanding. Andrew leans the rest of the way forward and places his mouth on Neil’s. Neil’s hands remain at his sides. His mouth yields to Andrew’s and he doesn’t protest when Andrew slides his tongue against Neil’s, just exhales softly into Andrew. Andrew can feel his own breath rush from his throat, heartbeats clashing in their mouths. Andrew bends Neil’s head back, grasps the back of his neck, caresses the curve of Neil’s jaw with his thumbs, skimming over arteries green under skin.

It’s been so long since Andrew wanted something, someone, like this. But it all comes back in an instant, the yearning, the ache for intimacy, for consummation. He’s never been so physically close to someone who trusted him, aware of Andrew’s ability to break with rage, to be a monster. But Neil seems to know how exact Andrew is in everything he does, melts with the gentleness of his potential energy. Andrew’s hands move roughly through Neil’s obscenely beautiful hair then down to his shoulders and his chest. Andrew guides Neil down until he looks up flushed from the bed, his blood stippling skin around the collar of his shirt and the tops of his cheekbones. His lips are soft and red, kiss-bitten. That ghost of a smile returns and Andrew moves forward to erase it. He moves his hands to the waistband of Neil’s sweats and looks up for an okay.

“Yes,” Neil whispers, hoarse.

Andrew pulls Neil’s sweats and boxers roughly to his knees. Neil sucks in a breath and his eyes drop to Andrew’s chest. Andrew complies with his silent request and pulls off his undershirt, leaving only his armbands on his top half. Neil’s body is lithe; shadows paint the sinew and muscle beneath his smooth skin dusted with a light layer of hair, the ridge of his hip arcing out of the dimpled line dipping between thigh and pelvis, a light trace of a scar trailing below the hem of his shirt, the dark tangle of hair around his erection.

Andrew takes Neil in his mouth, between teeth and tongue. Andrew runs heavy fingers over Neil’s torso, the nubs of hard nipples beneath his shirt. Neil is hot in his mouth, his hips bronze beneath Andrew’s pale fingers. Andrew looks up and sees the lamplight hanging in Neil’s blue eyes, both awful and cold, and clear and honest. In the graceful contours of his lips, a bargain struck between defiance and acquiescence.

Andrew feels ferocious, his body burning with expectation, but he licks and kisses and guides Neil into his mouth with care and purpose. Neil clenches his jaw when he comes, hands clutching at the white bedsheets, an angel in agony. Andrew gasps without meaning to when he feels it, a small sound of satisfaction, of revelation finally delivered.

 

 

Neil comes down from his high watching Andrew, a statue of sharp edges, all intention and fire. He doesn’t ask Neil to pleasure him. He doesn’t come. Neil doesn’t ask why. Andrew’s face has shifted, from impassive elegance dipping minutely into a scowl, to something that is fully present, attention honed to a point. The flush on his cheeks has spread to his neck and collarbones. Neil is enraptured.

Andrew hovers over Neil for a few slow moments and Neil looks up into his golden face, slightly slack with vulnerability. Neil leans up to Andrew’s neck and places a soft kiss there and is rewarded with a shiver. Andrew pushes off the bed and stalks into the bathroom, nearly slamming the door behind himself. Neil waits a moment, exposed in the cold air, before pulling his clothes back on. He climbs back onto the bed and tries to sort through what’s just happened, but all he can feel is a pleasant buzz that brings his frantic thoughts to syrupy slowness, and he falls in and out of consciousness. The bathroom door opens and Andrew walks halfway to the bed. His face is back to studied emptiness. He slides his shirt on then turns as if to leave.

“Andrew,” Neil’s voice is quiet.

Andrew pauses and looks over his shoulder.

“Where are you going?”

“You can’t sleep with strangers in the room.” No evidence of what has just transpired lingers in his voice.

“You’re not a stranger,” Neil says and his heart speeds up. He waits for hatred or anger or irritation or something to cross Andrew’s face but nothing does.

“Don’t do that,” Andrew says.

“Do what?”

“Look at me like that,” Andrew says. Then he returns to the armchair he was sitting on earlier and digs his book and glasses out of his bag. “Be quiet and go to sleep.”

Neil watches him don his reading glasses and crack open the book. Andrew catches Neil in the act and points the book at Neil’s face in silent warning. Neil obediently closes his eyes, relaxing them until a tiny slit of light glows between his eyelids, broken up by a muddy blotch cradling the pages of a thick novel, gently turning its pages in regular intervals. With the soft rush of wind beyond the curtained window and pleasant exhaustion in his limbs, Neil falls into a real sleep. Outside, the snow continues to pile up, several feet of white oblivion, but for Andrew and Neil it isn’t suffocating, it’s comfort. It’s protection. It’s relief.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Gabriella for putting together the Reverse Big Bang; to everyone in the discord chat for laughs and commiseration; to deyaamaya, e_cat, and iknowwhoyouare_damianos for looking over the story; and to @fornavn for letting me write for their beautiful art!
> 
> Thank you for reading!!


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